The Greenwood Initiative: Economic Justice for Black America

Many people in America suffer discrimination, but the African American experience is unique. Where slavery ended, systematic bias quickly took its place and Black Americans were crowded into neighborhoods, denied credit, starved of public investment and subjected to financial predators — and to a large extent, still are. The enduring legacy of this unconscionable history is reflected in the fact that, despite progress in closing education and employment gaps, the typical Black household remains almost ten times poorer than the typical white household.

Mike’s ambitious and sweeping Greenwood Initiative will deliver economic justice and create generational wealth for Black Americans by addressing systematic bias and making strategic investments in communities and businesses. In doing so, Mike aims to triple the wealth of the median Black household and increase upward mobility.

Mike’s Plan:

Create 100,000 new Black-owned small businesses

Create 1 million new Black homeowners

Invest $70 billion in our 100 most disadvantaged neighborhoods

Reinvigorate efforts to defend civil rights

Collect better data on hiring, pay, procurement, and lending

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Mike unveiled his agenda for economic justice for Black Americans in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was once home to the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood and the site of the 1921 Black Wall Street race riot.

Mike’s Plan:

Create generational wealth through homeownership

Mike’s plan lays out a path for the creation of 1 million new Black homeowners by providing down-payment assistance, getting millions banked and recognized by credit scoring companies, enforcing fair lending laws, reducing foreclosures and evictions and increasing the supply of affordable housing.

Spur the creation of more than 100,000 new Black-owned small businesses

Mike will double the number of Black-owned small businesses by establishing across the country user-friendly one-stop shops for entrepreneurs, expanding mentorships and incubators, increasing access to capital (both debt and equity), supporting Black-owned banks and expanding procurement from Black-owned businesses. These efforts will include a special focus on Black female entrepreneurs, the fastest-growing group of new entrepreneurs in the country.

Commit $70 billion in neighborhoods that need it most

Mike’s plan will commit $70 billion in funding and technical support to turn around 100 of the country’s most disadvantaged communities. The investments will focus on addressing disparities in early childhood, schools, higher education, skills and training, employment, health and environmental conditions.

Address systematic discrimination

Mike will reinvigorate the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and require more transparency from companies in their hiring, pay, lending and procurement practices. Mike’s plan also ties federal housing funding to progress in reducing segregation, requires implicit bias training for police, teachers and federal contractors, and expands and protects voting rights.

Mike’s Record:

Mike Bloomberg has been deeply committed to improving the lives of Black communities.

As mayor, Mike made fixing a broken school system his number one priority. He doubled the education budget, raised standards and increased quality school options. This led to record-high graduation rates for Black students and the narrowing of the Black-white achievement gap. Since leaving office, Mike’s focus on education has continued and he has helped tens of thousands of low- to moderate-income students across the country enroll and graduate from top colleges and universities.

While he was mayor, Mike created and co-funded the nation’s most ambitious effort to support young men of color — an initiative that inspired President Obama to launch My Brother’s Keeper. Mike also created alternatives to incarceration and restructured the juvenile justice system, including ending the practice of sending juvenile offenders far away to facilities upstate. Incarceration rates fell by 39% and juvenile detention by 36%.

Mike also led the nation’s most ambitious plan to expand affordable housing and the most ambitious effort to reduce poverty. Under Mike, New York was the only one of the 20 largest U.S. cities in which the poverty rate remained flat. In the other 19 cities, poverty rose by an average of 36%. In addition, the crime rate in New York City fell by a record 32%, far outpacing the rest of the nation.

Mike Bloomberg meets with Mayor Hardie Davis, Jr. at New Moon Cafe in Augusta, Georgia on December 6, 2019.